CNN host Erin Burnett has expressed her shock at Donald Trump’s deluge of “testy” late-night social media posts.
The sleep-dodging president, who turns 80 next month, posted more than 75 times on Monday night, spewing out hatred into the early hours.
The timing of Trump’s stream of increasingly deranged posts indicates he could have slept no more than 5-1/2 hours on Monday.
On Erin Burnett OutFront on Tuesday evening, the host played footage of the president insulting MS NOW’s White House correspondent, Akayla Gardner, after she asked him about the ballooning price of his vanity ballroom. Trump responded by calling her a “dumb person.”
“That’s the President of the United States,” Burnett responded on air, before suggesting his mood may have been affected by his lack of sleep.
“And his behavior today came after he spent much of the night seemingly awake,” Burnett continued. “Maybe that‘s why he‘s so testy, posting and reposting on social media.”
Pointing out his 75 overnight posts, Burnett asked viewers, “Do you know anybody who does that?”
The CNN host called out some of the more bonkers posts, including a $100 bill with his own face printed on it, AI-generated images of former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama swimming in sewage with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
CNN’s Daniel Dale, who fact-checks Trump’s Truth Social posts, called out his latest spree.
“It’s hard to explain just how detached from reality President Trump’s conspiracy-theory-filled social media posting spree last night and this morning was,” Dale posted on X.
He selected a “completely made-up and frankly nonsensical `quote’” claiming Obama had made $120 million from Obamacare, which has been attributed to everyone from Kash Patel to Madonna.
“The fake quote originated with a ‘satire’ website, basically a fakery factory, that invents stories to be shared by online conservatives; per the fact-check website Lead Stories,” Dale said.
On OutFront, Burnett then admitted Trump said something that, “even in the context of never knowing what’s going to be said on any given day, is shocking.”
She was referring to Trump telling a reporter on Tuesday he was “not even a little bit” motivated by the financial situation of Americans to make a deal to end his war in Iran, which has led to skyrocketing gas prices globally.
“The only thing that matters when I‘m talking about Iran, they can‘t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “I don‘t think about Americans’ financial situation.”
“He really said that,” Burnett said, stunned.
“Now, it is hard to get your head around a President of the United States saying that,” she said, adding it came on the day “he found out that prices are rising up, eating any wage gains that Americans have.”
CNN White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes, who is traveling with Trump to China, said Trump’s dismissal of American people and their financial situations was “wild.”
Holmes said White House officials “have been telling him day in and day out” how inflation, rising gas prices and the ongoing war in Iran are problem areas for him because the economy is what “Americans care the most about.”
She added, “President Trump grows increasingly frustrated when he feels like the messaging isn’t on his side.” That includes lashing out at reporters. “This is what he does when he can’t spin the narrative in the way he wants to spin it.”
